


Hummingbird

by androgenius



Category: Glee
Genre: 1920s, Alternate Universe - 1920s, Cheating, F/M, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-29
Updated: 2012-12-29
Packaged: 2017-11-22 20:04:31
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/613750
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/androgenius/pseuds/androgenius
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>1920s AU; Rachel and Jesse, Great Gatsby style, with a little less death, and a little more love.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Hummingbird

In the beginning, she is free.

Finn catches her like an inexperienced fisherman with all the right tools for a catch too great for his capture, one he is undeserving of and yet doesn't know it.

Rachel has always felt like a fish out of water, and the mansion, steeped in old money, doesn't feel any differently.

The year is 1920, and even despite the newly ratified and minted right to vote brought in like a harbinger of freedom on a sweaty August morning, Rachel doesn't feel any more free that morning or the next, or the one after that.

The chill of fall always seems to set in more quickly in New England, leaves turning color to give an illusion of vibrancy, remind Rachel what it's like to feel alive.

1921 rolls in like a ship sailing back into the harbor for the comforts of home, having long forgotten how dreary late January nights can be in the dark of night, how dull life can be when marriage doesn't feel like what it was heralded to be.

_Well, he is old money, you know_ , they used to remind her after the engagement had been set. _No reason for that not to be a happy marriage_.

She never understood that phrase, _old money_ , until now, after her wedding day. It had been beautiful, the sun high in the sky, making Rachel wish for rain on every subsequent one following their brief honeymoon.

_Old money._

She does feel old, she decides bleakly early one afternoon as Finn entertains guests in the parlor, Rachel pretending to laugh at their jokes. She's almost certain she doesn't sound genuine, but from the sound of it, and how invisible she seems, they don't seem to mind. Canned laughter would have been easier.

Money is only worth as much as someone is willing to assign to its worth. It can lose value, gain value, be less or more valuable compared to other currencies, exchanged like a good or a commodity.

Rachel's father handed her off to Finn at the altar, and now Finn is distributing her in small doses-- as much as is deemed acceptable-- to his colleagues.

_Love is valuable_ , she thinks as the pad of her thumb carefully inspects the spine of the book on the end table beside her. Love is never ignored, is something desired, deeply, truly, by everyone.

To be desired by everyone, Rachel sighs.

The doorbell sends her out of her reverie, Finn throwing her a small smile.

Like a young boy, a child he looks sometimes, as though he really would love her if he understood the concept beyond one aptly suited to the nurture and care of a mother.

Their housekeeper, Emma, rushes to the door, her hand smoothing down her apron not for the sake of fashion, but of cleanliness, the enticing aroma of a stew wafting through the kitchen door she left ajar.

Kurt is like a brother to Finn, Emma easily taking off his coat to hang up as he leaves the foyer in favor of the apparent company in the sitting room.

Rachel is off her feet sooner than propriety allows, rushing to his side as she nods to the sun room, linking their arms easily as he starts them walking with her words.

"Oh, please let's not stay here, can we go outside, talk, anything? I feel like I'm suffocating."

"You'll never believe who's back in town," he drawls slowly, a careful smile coming over his features, mischievous in all the wrong ways.

"I-- I don't know to whom you might be referring, Kurt."

"Yes, you do. He's only been hopelessly in love with you ever since he first laid eyes on you and you shot him down because he didn't have any money."

"No--"

"Jesse St. James." He grins slowly, ushering her out into the sun room and closing the door behind them. "I believe one could call him _new money_ by now. Never thought that pretentious street rat would make it up any corporate ladder. I hear he's worth more than the Hudsons and the Hummels combined by now."

The thin white drapes drawn down from the apex of the glass ceiling covering the sun room, running down along the edges and finally down the sides billow beautifully on the floor, letting through a hint of sunlight both through the fabric and the cracks between, making it feel warm despite the rain pounding down overhead.

Swallowing hard, Rachel slowly shakes her head.

"I don't understand."

"Oh, but you will," he prophesies, his hand pulling into his waistcoat to draw out two invitations.

_Mr. Jesse St. James formally invites you to..._

And the address. The largest mansion in the area, long uninhabited-- presumably until now.

"He's-- not married?"

She hardly recognizes her own voice, quiet and small as her eyes feel intensely conflicted, unsure whether to look at the invitation to see his name bearing down on her, making her knees weak, or at Kurt, to feel his judgment of her gaze, to learn of his true thoughts on this whole affair.

"No, but he clearly knows that you are."

"You don't suppose--"

"He asked me to deliver the invitation personally. To you, not your beau." He slowly gets up, keeping his flattened on the invitation as if to draw her gaze to his eyes instead, as though she could bear to look at it in the first place.

"Listen to me, Rachel Berry. New money is a bad investment. He doesn't know how to keep hold of it. And the last thing you want is to end up a street rat. He might look successful, but he's not. It's all an act."

"Everything about this town is an act," she whispers, looking after him with some despair as he moves to the door, his palms up, the picture of innocence and cowardice.

"Washing my hands of this. Don't make me regret telling you."

_Everything is an act_ , she stares down at the sequined ochre dress that's supposed to make her feel worth something. She looks like gold, but isn't-- just a commodity, having traded some of her own youth and value for that of the ring on her finger.

But isn't that the American Dream?

 

&

 

The sky looks to be on fire with the display overhead as Rachel shivers, a familiar voice resounding from near the entrance of the grand mansion, flooded with visitors.

"The fireworks display should be on all night," he says softly, reaching out to take her coat as he brushes the servant aside with a smile. "Thank you, James. But I wished to greet this young woman myself. And--" There's a short pause. "Her husband, isn't it."

She shivers again despite herself, sparing a glance up at the beautifully lit night sky to avoid Jesse's gaze despite the hand at her arm.

"Mr. and Mrs. Hudson."

She lets out a soft breath, exasperation and fatigue from two years of marriage carefully, slowly expelled. "Rachel, please."

"Yes, of course." He smiles, his eyes flashing dangerously. "Rachel. And as beautiful as ever, I should add."

It seems to physically pain him to tear his attention away from her, but finally he turns to Finn with a nod and a hand at his shoulder, that same smile still fixed on his face, but warped in the way that a smile, asked to stand still for too long while the photographer took a picture, might. Overextended, perhaps.

"Finn Hudson. It's a pleasure to see you again on neutral ground.

"I see you've done fairly well for yourself," he nods appraisingly at the home looming large before them under a brightly lit sky of firework stars.

But even the stars are fake-- as much as the smile on Jesse's face is, the mansion towering behind him like an emblem to his own self-worth.

"Not as well as you," Jesse nods quietly as he looks to Rachel, and it's the first real moment she's felt-- not only from him, but in what feels like an eternity by now. "Not nearly as well as you."

 

&

 

It's after Jesse's departure, Finn getting lost in the crowd, and Kurt stopping by the mention that he's been spending the entirety of the evening with a fascinating gentleman, that Rachel decides to head into the courtyard on her own.

It truly is a formidable home-- quite beautiful, really, the way it seems to take charge of the skyline, transform it into something jagged and different, warped from the way things should be, are.

Something is wrong with reality, Rachel thinks as she looks out over the beautiful flower display littering the garden out in the back, surrounding a large fountain.

The fireworks up overhead render skywatching impossible, not a single real star in the sky.

Then again, as nagging thoughts aptly remind her a moment later, they hardly live in a rural area. All the lights from the homes and streetlights are sure to dim out the night sky of any stars even so, even without the fake ones overshadowing the sight, making sure that not only individual things, but also the environment is at fault-- everything is fake, nothing real.

She knows the hand moving to sit at the small of her back is Jesse's before he addresses her, her eyes slowly closing at the feeling.

"You're the only person I cared about coming tonight."

"I know," she whispers softly.

"I love you, Rachel Berry."

The sharp intake of her own breath is more telling than anything else, but he repeats it again after a hard swallow, as though he didn't hear.

"I'm still in love with you, Rachel Berry."

"It's Hudson now."

Quietly acknowledged. She's not even sure if she wants to it to be, or if she's just saying it out of two years of habit, frequently forgotten by people who remember her too keenly as Berry, or who do not wish to acknowledge her as Hudson.

She's not sure Jesse fits either category, and she bristles at herself for trying to categorize him in the first place.

"Does it matter?"

Rachel knows countless women that delight in affairs regularly, and those that don't are far and few between, women who are too miserable and trapped in their marriage to try and break free, and those truly in love with their husbands.

And even though she is neither of them, not in love, nor broken and defeated, she remains trapped.

"I'm not sure."

For the first time that night, she turns to face him, her gaze troubled as she shakes her head.

"I can no longer tell apart what is real and what isn't."

"My love for you," he whispers, grasping her hands in his as he leans in to press his forehead against hers. "Is real."

She agrees; can't help but. Love is above all else-- and isn't this precisely what she wanted, to be loved and appreciated beyond just the value of a commodity? He doesn't want her for her money or her body; he could have anyone. He just wants _her_.

"Marry me, Rachel Berry."

She pulls back with her eyes wide, slowly shaking her head as she stares, helplessly.

"I'm married, Jesse, that's--"

"Then run away with me. Have an affair with me, I--" His voice cracks. " _Love_ me."

"But," her voice sounds so young as she falters, blinking up at him with big, helpless eyes. "I don't know how to."

For a split second, it looks like he might lean in to kiss her, his fingertips skirting against the soft skin of her cheek, her temple, leaning in-- until he seems to remember that they're surrounded by guests, people as fake as this house, his money, these outfits, this life.

A part of her seems to want to cling to him, this feeling, their lost kiss, and, most importantly, the grief she's left with now, if only because it's the first real thing she's felt in a while, something to fill the void she's drowning in.

"I'll give you the world, Rachel. The stars in the night sky, the house of your dreams--" He's breathing hard with seeming restraint to keep from kissing her, just barely lingering on the cups as his fingertips trail over the olive hues of her cheeks. "I remember what you said when I first confessed to you. That I had no money, that you needed someone to provide for you and keep you safe-- don't you see, Rachel?! I have money now!"

"That you can lose again just as easily!"

"The world," he whispers brokenly, his knees seeming to shake weakly as if heralding that he might drop down to them if he isn't careful. "I'll give you the world."

"I don't want the world, Jesse. I just want something real."

"Then love me," he pleads again, leaning his forehead to hers once more as his hand ghosts over her cheek.

"I _can't_." Her voice breaks.

Rachel wonders if grief doesn't feel far more real than happiness ever did.

 

&

 

"Rachel," Kurt smiles as he sidles up to her, looping her arm in his as he surveys the dance floor before them.

"I'm going to have an affair," she announces with a nod as he turns to her, his eyes going slightly wide.

"I'm sorry?"

"An affair," she slowly nods again, turning to him with a smile. "You know, I can't think of a single girl who isn't."

"That's not a very good reason to have one, Rachel."

"It seems like a reasonable middle ground. I... don't have to be in love to have an affair. But I also don't have to be completely unreasonable and unfaithful."

"I see."

"I know," she sighs, her hand around his arm as she leans into him. "I just need a change. And besides, I'm sure Finn's having tons of affairs."

"None that he's told me about, anyway," he brushes off with a sigh, ass though that should answer the question, though it doesn't.

If makes her feel guilty, but a part of Rachel is certain that Finn wouldn't tell Kurt if he had an affair, if only because Kurt might try to console her, help her, comfort her the way any good friend would.

Perhaps, she can only hope, the illusion of love is strong enough to create the feeling.

 

&

 

"I don't love you, Jesse St. James," she tells him firmly as he kisses at her neck, worshiping at her skin as though she's the only being in the universe to him, smooth, perfectly manicured hands running over the pale olive hues coloring her chest.

"I know," he whispers against her neck, his hands pleading her to lie back as she undoes her stockings, rolling them down.

Everything in his house feels like a museum, cold and sterile. Expensive and fake.

Except for him, he's real. The feeling of his skin when she touches him, goes for a second touch and a third, warm and comforting as she closes her eyes. And every time he reminds her that he loves her, that he's _in love with you, Rachel Berry_ , feels a little bit more like drowning in a sea of comforting, freshly washed, warm, straight out of the newly invented clothes dryer sheets, blankets, pillows.

"I'm not even sure that I'll love you one day," she tells him as he gently eases himself on top of her to kiss her, hard and desperate.

"I know," he whispers in her ear this time, and undoes the fastening for her bra, his lips pleading with her skin to turn soft and rosy under his mouth's careful ministrations.

"I love you, Rachel Berry," he reminds her again, as if it's more for him than anyone else, as though he should need to remind himself.

Or maybe he doesn't.

Maybe he has to fill the void, the spaces where she doesn't tell him she loves him back, with words of his own.

He whispers _I love you, Rachel Berry_ when he kisses a trail down her chest, eyes glued to hers, when he spreads her legs and kisses her there, when he presses inside of her and makes her scream.

_I love you, Rachel Berry_.

She comes harder than ever before with his words, and wonders if this is what it feels like to be truly alive.

 

&

 

"I _love_ you, Rachel Berry!" Kurt grins as he holds the new, freshly tailored jacket up to his chest in the mirror as she looks on from her dent in the bed, her legs dangling off the edge and not quite hitting the floor, as though she still were a little girl.

Maybe she is. She's not so sure these days anymore.

"This is _perfect_. I love you, I love you, I love you!"

It's different when Kurt says it.

There's _inflection_ that weighs heavier here and there to convey excitement, not actual feelings. Jesse whispers the words like a prayer, like something he held secret underneath his tongue for too long, such that he must say it over and over to repent for his silence.

_I love you, Rachel Berry,_ with reverence and grace and sincerity. Kurt's words are shallow and uttered quickly without thought, and yet Rachel wishes he meant them, syllable by lonely syllable.

Finn declares it without thought and she doesn't care, but perhaps, she wonders, marriage is a challenge already conquered, a chase already brought to an end.

He loves her, but he's supposed to, because she's his wife. It's his moral obligation. Kurt shouldn't, which is why she wants him to. Jesse simply does.

"For the brunch?" she asks, moving to sit in front of her vanity mirror to fasten the white feathered comb and net in her hair just over her ear, drawing the netting elegantly over her forehead and eyes.

"Yeeees," he almost purrs, plucking a piece of lint off of the small of her back before patting her encouragingly. "Come on. You look fabulous."

 

&

 

"Oh, look. There's Jesse. He probably bought his way in."

It's true, the monthly gala brunch is only for the elites-- old money, generally, seasoned names that have been on the guest list for years and years, but there he is.

The girl on his arm looks like everything Rachel isn't. Blonde, elegant, beautiful, unmarried.

"... or maybe he didn't," Kurt muses quietly, catching sight of Quinn Fabray at Jesse's side.

He takes a moment to whisper something in her ear, likely an excuse to briefly leave her, and heads over to Rachel with a smile.

"I... didn't expect to see you here, Jesse."

"She's beautiful," his chest seems to puff up like that of a bird as his eyes settle on the gorgeous blonde that all eyes seem to be drawn to. "Isn't she? Especially when she smiles."

She doesn't understand, her world seeming to reel.

_I love you, Rachel Berry_ seems to ring hollow now, and her heart aches with feelings she didn't realize she had.

"Yes, of course, I--" Rachel offers a brief smile and a nod. "If you'll excuse me."

Quinn seems to cling to Jesse throughout the rest of the gala, and Rachel feels sick.

 

&

 

"You have Finn," he informs her very seriously one day following one of their trysts in his bed as he pulls his clothes back on easily. "It only seems fair, doesn't it?"

"W-well, but..." Sitting up on her elbows a bit unsteadily, Rachel swallows hard, fighting the pout threatening to overcome her face in spite of herself. "Y-you're not hoping for this to last, are you?"

"I'm courting her," he grins, leaning in to kiss her forehead before slipping out of the room, Rachel sick to herself, her hands suddenly trembling, shaking viciously.

"I didn't think you'd mind," he calls from the other room, Rachel letting her eyes close as she stands on shaky legs. Of course he didn't.

Because she doesn't love him.

 

&

 

The news of Quinn-- and seeing the two of them at another party, side by side-- has her wondering why, exactly, it is that she doesn't love him, what it is about him that is supposed to make him undesirable.

Because he doesn't seem so undesirable now.

The way he touches her cheek while he makes love to her.

The way he trails kisses over her chest, her neck, her jaw, worshiping her skin before kissing her lips once more.

The way he parts her legs and laps at her core, over and over, until she screams.

The way he says her name, whispers to her that he loves her when she never utters a single syllable back, _can't_.

When Rachel starts showing, Kurt is the first to notice, even if he doesn't immediately put the pieces all together just from helping her fit into one of her new dresses. Instead, Rachel realizes it with the absence of her period and the weight gain around her abdomen alone.

And she does feel alone in all this, especially when Kurt brings news of Jesse's engagement to Quinn.

Tucked away into the refuge of the sun room, their invitations in hand, Rachel feels sick to her stomach-- more from the hatred of her predicament, for once, than from morning sickness, whispering to Kurt that she needs to tell him something.

"Oh-- good, I'm glad. I know this sounds... strange, but I guess that means we can both get something off our chests. I have... something to confess to you, too."

She's wanted Kurt, loved Kurt, for so long that she wonders, for just a split second, if this is the moment he'll finally tell her that he loves her, that Jesse proposing to Quinn finally made him realize that she's been the one all along, and her breath catches in her throat, until it's not the words _I love you, Rachel Berry_ \-- Jesse's words, forever and ever Jesse's to hold near and dear on his tongue to treasure and whisper to her in the dead of night-- that leave his throat, but other ones that leave her feeling more alone than even before.

"I-- I think I'm gay."

"I'm pregnant," her voice cracks with the flood of heavy tears at his words, as though, somehow, the revelation would make him change his mind, make him see that he _has_ to love her, has to out of sheer obligation more than anything else. His responsibility as her closest friend over the years, a veritable brother-in-law when he could have had her as his wife.

"... oh. Oh dear."

"Kurt, please-- please, I don't know what I'm to do--"

"Okay-- okay, the first thing we need to do is _not panic_." It's weird, coming from him, when he's so very clearly panicking as she clutches desperately onto his hands, anything in the world to hold onto and offer stability.

"And it's not--"

"Of course it's not Finn's, Kurt, _please_."

"But would he know it can't be his?"

"I don't--"

"All you have to do is pretend. You've been doing it so well all along, haven't you? What's one more lie?"

 

&

 

Kurt is right, of course, and the engagement party only seems to be a further tumble down that particularly slippery slope. Another lie, here, there-- everyone is so happy for the happy couple that don't really love each other, Rachel is pregnant with a child that seems to only further highlight her heartache, and the man she should have chosen so long ago in spite of his lack of wealth.

"Rachel," he smiles, leaning in to press a soft kiss to the back of her hand; softer than she remembered last, his gaze nevertheless seeming to burn for her with the same intensity. "I wasn't sure I'd be seeing you here tonight."

"And... miss the celebration for your engagement, of course not."

"I did miss yours. I thought it suitable."

"I--"

"You're still the only person I cared about coming here tonight," he whispers, cradling her hand in between both of his as he might a small child in his care, and she feels tears on her cheeks before she can stop them as he turns from her.

 

&

 

He finds her again on the terrace overlooking the garden. No fireworks tonight; time for them to make their own stars.

"I love you, Jesse St. James," she whispers softly, quiet enough that she's not sure anyone but the angels might have heard her.

"Yes," he replies, sounding stronger than she's ever heard him, almost exhilarated, as though money hasn't made him as weak as everyone else around them both. "I thought so."

"Then--"

"Nothing's changed. You were married, what difference should it make if I am?"

Tearing her gaze from the garden, she shakes her head at him, almost despairing at the feeling in her gut as she turns from him and hurries down the stairs into the safety of the green-- anything, anything that isn't artificial, that's truly as real as the tears on her face.

She hasn't felt like she's cried since she was born and didn't know any better about money and the responsibilities of this lifestyle, and tearing into her dress to pull it off her body in shreds, worthless shreds, she feels more worthwhile than she ever has.

 

&

 

Jesse finds her after midnight, asleep in a small spot of grass with her clothes in shreds, gathering her up easily into his arms. And though he contemplates returning to the estate, he decides that the small makeshift guest house serves just as well, if not perfectly.

"I want to run away," she whispers quietly, half-awake in his arms as he slowly settles her down onto a small cot. "With no money. No money at all. Just... you. You and the baby."

He'd be a fool not to have noticed her belly by now, and he slowly smiles as he cradles her cheek, leaning in to touch his forehead against hers.

"There isn't anything I wouldn't do for you, you know that." His smile only seems to grow as his fingertips carefully trace the outline of her face. "I love you, Rachel Berry."


End file.
